Absolute Monarchs in Europe, 1500 to 1800 Chapter 21a, Pages 586 to 619 World History: Patterns of Interaction McDougal-Littell 2007

Charles V ruled most of Europe as the Holy Roman Emperor from 1519 to 1556; he successfully defended Hungary and Vienna from the Islamic attacks of Suleyman the Magnificent. Charles then abdicated, and left the eastern part of his realm, Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, to his brother Ferdinand; he left the western part to his son Philip II: Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, and Spanish colonies in America. Philip II expanded his territory by seizing Portugal; he thereby also obtained the Portuguese possessions in Africa, India, and the East Indies. When the Muslims attacked Greece, the Spanish navy defeated them at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. But in 1588, the Spanish navy lost when it attacked England. The navy’s defeat and high taxes combined to weaken Spain. Not only did the Spanish government tax its own citizens, it taxed the Netherlands, which it owned. In 1566, the Dutch began a revolt.

By 1579, the northern part of the Netherlands was able to declare its independence. It became a center of both banking and art. Rembrandt and Jan Vermeer were two Dutch painters of the era. Italy was no longer a major player in banking, and the Netherlands obtained the Dutch East Indies.

Spanish and French kings were examples of “absolute monarchy.” There was no limit on their power, and they were responsible only to God. The end of feudalism led to such centralization of political power. In , King Henry II died in 1559; after some succession problems (Henry had four sons), his fourth son became Henry III in 1574. A Roman Catholic, he belonged to the Valois dynasty, an offshoot of the Capetian dynasty. His wife was from the Lorraine dynasty. Because they had no heir, another succession problem was in the offing. When Henry III died, his power would go to his distant cousin, Henry of Navarre, a member of the Bourbon dynasty. Henry III was not eager to see his power go to Henry of Navarre.

The Guise dynasty, an offshoot of the Lorraine dynasty, sought to obtain power. The Lorraine dynasty’s leader, Henry I of Guise, wanted to disrupt the normal rules of succession to gain power for himself; he wanted Henry III to leave the power to him. Although Henry III of Valois was allegedly in an alliance with Henry I of Guise, the two actually fought each other with their armies; Henry III was

Chapter 21a, page 1 assassinated by an operative of Henry I of Guise. They were both Roman Catholic; the wars between them, and the assassination, were about power, not religion. The royal officials would not, however, turn power over to Henry I of Guise, and Henry of Navarre became King Henry IV. Called “The War of the Three Henrys,” these struggles were also known as “The ” because Henry IV converted to Roman Catholicism, but the struggles were actually about royal power, not religion. (Henry IV was born Roman Catholic in 1553, converted to in 1572, and converted back to Roman Catholicism in 1593: confusing!) Taking the throne in 1589, Henry IV issued the “” in 1598, which gave religious toleration to the Protestants in France, called “.”

Henry’s son, Louis XIII, was the next king of France. Unable to, or uninterested in, ruling well, he appointed Cardinal Richelieu, who ruled efficiently and capably, but also moved the Bourbon dynasty toward absolutism. Richelieu wanted to make France the strongest state in Europe. The greatest obstacle to this, he believed, were the Hapsburg rulers, whose lands surrounded France. The Hapsburgs ruled Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and parts of the Holy Roman Empire. To limit Hapsburg power, Richelieu involved France in the Thirty Years’ War. France was officially a Roman Catholic nation, tolerating the small Huguenot minority, and the Hapsburg dynasty was also Roman Catholic, so pure political power, not religion, was the motive for Richelieu’s war.

Disgusted by the political power-grabbing of the era, some thinkers were skeptical of political institutions – wondering if justice might be found more clearly outside the competitions between dynasties than within them – and skeptical about religious institutions – wondering if individuals might find a clearer knowledge of God outside the church than within it. One of these thinkers, Montaigne, was loyal to the Roman Catholic faith without necessarily being faithful to the Roman . Another philosopher, René Descartes, decided to do away entirely with traditional philosophers like Aristotle and with the authority of the Roman Catholic church, and instead found reliable knowledge about God through reason. Descartes was an accomplished mathematician, the discoverer of the Cartesian plane in algebra, and noted that the universe’s existence was not necessary but contingent: there is no rational principle requiring that the universe must exist. Therefore, Descartes concluded, the universe is contingent upon something: God.

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